I ordered a piece of computer equipment from the Costco website yesterday at 4:15 PM. UPS just delivered it.

Just wanted to say that this is not humanly possible. They must be using psychics and shipping this stuff before we order it.

I remember liking everything about Post Crispy Critters cereal except the cereal. Liked the name, liked the commercials, liked the mascot, liked his voice and his cartoons. But the cereal? It was like styrofoam peanuts dipped in sugar. No wonder they stopped making it.

I went through that phase where I had to try every new cereal when it came out…and the phase usually never lasted much longer than a box. Sometimes, half a box…and then it would be back to one of my two all-time faves, Cheerios or Rice Chex. The simple, basic stuff always won out in the end. (Before I drastically altered my diet last May, I ate a lot of my favorite adult cereal, which was Barbara's Shredded Oats. And it just dawned on me that it's kind of like Cheerios and Rice Chex rolled into one.)

Apparently, Crispy Critters is ancient history but before it went away, it had a last hurrah. In '87, Post tried to bring it back in what I believe was a lower sugar version. At least, they call it "low sugar" in the commercial you're about to see, whereas the commercials for the earlier version (like the one in yesterday's link) emphasized sugar as a selling point. I never tried the 1987 version of Crispy Critters but since the sugar was the only reason to eat the sixties incarnation, I'm guessing I didn't miss much. More significant is the new spokescritter who sounds like Jimmy Durante as done by someone who doesn't do a real good Jimmy Durante.

His name was Crispy and he was a…well, I'm not sure what he was or why they selected an unidentifiable animal as their mascot. The appeal of Crispy Critters — and admittedly, this isn't much — was that you could identify each piece of your breakfast cereal as a camel or a monkey or a lion or an orange moose…or something. So why characterize the product with an animal who can't be characterized?

Even great commercials probably wouldn't have saved this product. But they didn't have to be this bad…

Glenn Greenwald has a good article up on Salon about today's court decision in the matter of wiretapping sans warrant. Here are two key paragraphs…

It is important to be clear about what this decision means and what it does not mean — particularly since the White House, among others, is already depicting this ruling as some sort of epic blow to the administration's efforts to fight terrorism. This ruling does not, of course, prohibit eavesdropping on terrorists; it merely prohibits illegal eavesdropping in violation of FISA.

Thus, even under the court's order, the Bush administration is free to continue to do all the eavesdropping on terrorists it wants to do. It just has to cease doing so using its own secretive parameters, and instead do so with the oversight of the FISA court — just as all administrations have done since 1978, just as the law requires, and just as it did very recently when using surveillance with regard to the U.K. terror plot. Eavesdropping on terrorists can continue in full force. But it must comply with the law.

In reading a lot of articles that abhor today's decision, I have yet to see anyone argue that the above is not what the judge's opinion says, nor have I seen anyone argue that this is a bad thing. The arguments all seem to be mounted as if the judge ruled that the Bush must stop all wiretapping, period. Guess that's easier to rebut or something.

So apparently the guy did confess — sort of but maybe not convincingly — to killing the little Ramsey girl, only now some observers are wondering if the confession is legit. At the same time, some others are wondering if the arrest and announcement were premature because the case hasn't been built yet and maybe it's even a stunt to smoke out the real killer and…

Stop.

I was kind of interested in this story the other day for a moment. It was a moment when it looked like all the folks who were damn sure (based on way too little evidence to be that certain) that Mrs. Ramsey killed her daughter were going to have to deal with being dead wrong. I'm not all that interested in who really killed JonBenet Ramsey…no more than you are in who killed a lot of people you didn't know. But I am fascinated by Denial of Reality, or at least by some folks' tendency to pluck opinions out of the ozone layer and then defend them to the death. I think our society abounds in way too many false conclusions.

I'm also interested in the press…in its uncanny ability to get things absolutely wrong and not get called out for it. So when the Ramsey story was briefly about that, I was also interested.

But now, it's all pulled a Geraldo and swung back into Tabloid Territory. We're in "We'll never know for sure" country. No matter what the disposition is of this John Mark Karr guy — even if he comes up with camcorder footage of himself strangling the little lady — there will always be those saying he's innocent, that he was framed, that there was a police conspiracy, yadda yadda yadda. Or if his innocence is proven beyond any reasonable doubt, there will be books about how that miscarriage of justice was engineered. Too many people have too much invested in varying accounts for any view to ever be buried.

So I'm getting off the train. I'll avoid the news stories as much as I can…which probably won't be enough. And I may grumble that, uh, American soldiers are dying overseas but that keeps getting booted off the CNN homepage by the latest Ramsey rumor. But I ain't following this one any more. To those of you who already came to this conclusion because you're smarter than I am: Pardon me for mentioning it at all. I don't know what came over me.

Veteran actor (and cartoon voice actor) Tony Jay died last Sunday following micro-surgery to remove a non-cancerous tumor from his lungs. His age is unknown but it is believed he was born in the mid-thirties.

Tony was an unusual player in the pool of voice talent. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, he was the possessor of a magnificent baritone voice that he put to good use in countless commercials and cartoon shows. He was heard in hundreds of animated shows, features and video games, usually playing villains. The list includes Mighty Max, Tale Spin, Reboot, Buzz Lightyear, Bruno the Kid and the 1995 Fantastic Four cartoon series, for which he supplied the voice of Galactus. His standout role was probably that of the evil Judge Frollo (seen above) in the Disney Studios' version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Tony also had a very busy on-camera career that included roles in movies (including Love and Death and Twins) and television programs (including Lois and Clark, Twin Peaks and Beauty and the Beast) but his greatest pride was in his numerous stage appearances.

I only knew Tony casually, meeting him twice under what were probably unfortunate circumstances. A few years ago in an interview, he was quoted as making some rather ungracious remarks about his fellow voice actors. I don't recall the specific lines but the essence of them — which Tony suggested was yanked out of the intended context — was that he was a real actor and the others voicing cartoons were in some lower sphere of talent. Both times I encountered him, I was in the company of another voice actor who'd taken umbrage at the quote and testy words were exchanged…though, I must say, in magnificent tones. Neither moment was, alas, a propitious one for getting to know Tony Jay.

You can get to know more about him — and hear some samples of what the man could do before a microphone — at his website. An obit notice appears on this page.

Did the suspect being held in Thailand confess to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey? Well, you can take your choice…

Bloomberg: American John Mark Karr admitted killing JonBenet Ramsey, a 6-year-old girl found slain in her family's basement almost a decade ago, Thai police said.

Associated Press: An American suspect arrested in connection with the death of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey denied any connection to her murder when he was detained at his downtown Bangkok apartment Wednesday, police said. The suspect was identified as John Mark Karr, according to Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, who heads the country's immigration police. Karr denied involvement in the slayings, another police official said.

So what do we think the story is here? I'm not asking whether the guy killed the little girl. I'm asking about the discrepancy in the news reports on whether or not he's confessed. Did one reporter get one story from one source within the police department while a different reporter heard the opposite from another source? Does the difference lie with the fact that the second story is quoting someone in the "immigration police," whereas the first account is from a different police department? Something's wrong here and I'm curious as to what it is.

Here's a clever idea. You can send someone an ad for the movie, Snakes on a Plane, which will arrive in the form of a personalized message from Samuel L. Jackson. Click on this link to go to the page, fill in some info and you're off! Thanks to Carolyn Kelly for the tip.

One of the most in-demand voiceover artists in the business is a gent named Maurice LaMarche. You may have heard him bust up the joint on one of the Cartoon Voice panels I moderated at the Comic-Con International in San Diego last month. Or you may have heard him on The Critic or on Futurama or even on Pinky and the Brain, where he provided the voice of The Brain, which I always thought was like Vincent Price doing an impression of Orson Welles. Actually, the guy's all over the place.

Anyway, Mo (as everyone calls him) is appallingly talented and the fine journalist/webguy Ken Plume has done a very long, very interesting interview with the guy. For those of you interested in how the world of voiceover works, I highly recommend all parts of it except the ones where Mo talks about how he isn't up there with the top guys. If he says that one more time, we're going to have him arrested for perjury. Sheesh.

I don't think the Post cereal people still make Crispy Critters but when I was a kid, they did…and their commercials featured Linus the Lionhearted, whose voice was supplied by producer-gangster Sheldon Leonard. Linus had his own cartoon show for a while (we showed you the opening here) and this is one of his catchier commercial jobs. Get ready to hum the Orange Moose song to yourself for the next few days.

The Hungarian government is conducting an online poll to select the name for a new bridge spanning the Danube River. If you've been watching The Colbert Report, you've seen Stephen Colbert asking his viewers to vote for it to be named after him.

It started with an announcement near the end of this segment (that's a link to a video) and it's gone on from there. Wanna help?

This is the link to the page on which you can cast your ballot…and I'll warn you in advance that the site is very slow and sometimes doesn't load at all. You'll want to scroll down to "Stephen Colbert híd" and select that option, then scroll down to the bottom and click on "Elküld" to submit your vote.

It's actually a hassle but, hey, it may be the most important vote you cast this year. Or at least, the only one that's accurately counted.

So…I haven't been watching cable news today. But on past occasions when I did, I heard an awful lot of talking heads telling us that there was little doubt that one or both of the JonBenet Ramsey's parents had killed their daughter. At times, it was along the lines of, "If you think any other scenario was possible, you're an idiot."

Today, in light of the arrest of someone else for the crime, I'm sure all those pundits and experts are retracting and apologizing, right?

Fans of the What's My Line? reruns on GSN, do not despair. We may not have lost 'em for good.

Fred Kaplan on a growing problem in our various wars on terror: Lack of funds.

Many moons ago, I wrote a couple episodes of Superman: The Animated Series. I'm asked all about them in this interview over on Toon Zone.

Cracked Magazine is back. You may not have even known it was gone…or maybe you thought it was gone long ago. But the longest-running MAD imitation is returning to newsstands after a two-year hiatus and an ownership change. The new version promises edgier material and "star" writers, including some from hit TV programs such as The Daily Show. This article tells a little bit about the return and then over on the Cracked website, they have a preview of the first issue under the new regime, which I believe is starting its numbering over with #1. (The last issue before the layoff was #357.)

Will the new version fly? I dunno. One does get the feeling that the day of the humor magazine is past; that the target audience can get all the irreverence it wants (plus porn) for free on the Internet. Sales on MAD are not what they once were, even though that publication's sharper than it's been in years. I'm guessing that the new owners of Cracked are expecting to drop a lot of bucks on newsstand sales and are just publishing as a loss leader. They're more likely out to hype a brand name that can be used in other venues, the way MAD became a TV show and the name of National Lampoon has been used to sell movies of variable merit. There hasn't been a National Lampoon magazine published since 1998 but its logo apparently still conveys some sales boost to teen-targeted comedy.

So maybe the new Cracked will succeed, at least in that way. Its name certainly seems to be lucky. Cracked started in 1958, when it was supervised by Sol Brodsky, who was later a key player in the Marvel Comics revolution of the sixties. The current management is trying something which was never really attempted either by Brodsky or his successors. They're trying to establish an identity for their publication…an identity that has nothing to do with MAD.

For much of its existence, Cracked was kind of a minor league or farm team MAD. Several key MAD artists, including Will Elder and Jack Davis, worked for it while in exile from the home of Alfred E. Neuman and other illustrators — like Angelo Torres, Bill Wray and Tom Richmond — worked for Cracked until they were deemed good enough for MAD. Several key MAD writers sold their MAD rejects there and one of MAD's most prolific writers, Lou Silverstone, edited Cracked for a number of years. In '87, Cracked got a huge boost by grabbing onto "MAD's maddest artist" Don Martin when he quit in a dispute with MAD's publisher and longtime MAD associate editor Jerry DeFuccio also found a home at Cracked when he was let go.

In other words, Cracked has consistently defined itself in terms of MAD, featuring talent that either had been in MAD or wanted to be in MAD, and aping the look and feel of the competition. The new management is trying to build something different and I hope it works. You'll know it has when we start seeing Cracked movies or a Cracked radio network or a Cracked TV show. Because sad to say, just being a humor magazine that succeeds as a humor magazine is no longer enough. There's no money in it.